Voice-mail and email are very effective communication tools. As such, your target list of prospects and customers is being inundated with voice-mails and email messages from your direct competitors, in addition to any number of other vendors who compete with you indirectly—for appointments and meetings..

The are only two reasons people respond to voice and email messages—obligation and curiosity. If your boss calls and leaves a message, you will likely return the call. If your largest customer calls, you will surely return their call as well, because that’s what you do when you have important customers, or a boss.

But, what about decision makers who don’t feel “obligated” to return cold calls from vendors? Besides obligation, the only other thing that causes people to return voice-mail messages or email is curiosity.

The challenge is, most voice-mails and email messages that get lobbed into potential decision makers do more to satisfy their curiosity than create it. Oops! As a result, the average return call rate on voice-mail has dropped below 5%, and the odds of getting replies to email can be just as bleak.

Sample message of Curiosity Inducing Voice-mails:

i.)                 “Hi, Steve, this is Jeff Berson calling from ISN Network. I manage a marketing team that helps financial brokers like you get in front of more people. A note came across my desk yesterday morning that caught my eye regarding a new lead generation system and I wanted to try to catch up with you today if possible. When you get a chance, could you please call me at (800) 338-1892

Key Point: If I sent 5 different voice-mails or email messages, they would have five different sets of words depending on what information I had about the client, my purpose for calling, and the objective of the call. But in every case, my intention would be to leave (or send) a purposeful message, that was specific and relevant and would create curiosity. Do that in your business, and you can easily realize a 50%+ response rate, which represents a whopping 1000% increase over industry averages.